Depending on your interest in friendships and relationships, here are some tips and information to support you. There are different levels of friends and different places to meet friends.

It takes time to develop friendships, to move beyond acquaintances where you just say “Hi, how are you” to a co-worker or student. You may meet potential friends in different places like your neighbors or at an activity you both enjoy, at school or work.

Conversation Basics

You may find it helpful to practice and think about these conversation basics with your therapist, social skills group, family or friends.

• Practice conversation starters. What comes in the middle? How do you close?
• Take turns talking and listening to the other person. Know when it’s time to stop talking and when the conversation is coming to an end.
• Learn how much to share in a conversation depending on who you are talking to.
• Learn how to not misread the social cues. Social skills training - looking for body language and words being used. This may vary depending on culture.
• Understand the challenge of literal thinking and perspective taking. Learn cues for how the other person is feeling.

Understanding and Developing Friendships

These are essential skills and issues that professionals, school, or family can help you with:

How to understand who is a friend vs acquaintance and that friendship takes time to develop. Is this someone you can depend on and confide in safely? Or are you friendly, saying “Hi” when you see each other at school or work or doing a particular activity in the same group?

Moving from an acquaintance to a friend you hang out with and share deeper thoughts with takes time. It involves getting to know each other well, sharing experiences and having some interests or other things in common. Maintaining a friendship means talking regularly through whatever way you’re both comfortable with and seeking fun things to do or talk about that you both enjoy.

Think about different people you find interesting and how you might ask them to hang out or do something together. You could practice conversation topics like asking about an interest that the person has. Consider what type of activity or interests they have that you might like to do when you get together.

Friendships bring companionship and fun, but may also involve hurt feelings, such as a friendship ending or someone angry or frustrated with you.

It can be hard learning how to handle it when someone doesn't want to be your friend but it is a part of life.

Sometimes you may not want to be someone's friend who approaches you. Know how to respond politely and directly to someone who wants to be friends with you, but you don’t want to be friends with.

Safety Issues and Friendship

Discuss safety issues with people you trust like your family about what to do if your friend suggests something that you are not comfortable with or makes you feel like you are being taken advantage of. How should you respond if someone seems inappropriate?

If you use social media, make sure you understand safety issues like not giving your address. If you’re meeting someone online in person for the first time, bring someone with you or let someone know who you trust that you are meeting someone and where you’re meeting as a precaution.

There are people on pornography or other online websites that are targeting you for purposes like money that may appear to be or act like your friend. You will find more information in the safety at home and safety in the community articles in the Milestones Autism Planning (MAP) Tool. We will be adding articles about sexuality, dating and relationships to the MAP later in 2022.

Bullying

Bullying is an incredibly difficult challenge to go through. While we think of bullying as happening to kids, sadly it happens with adults, too. Bullying takes many different forms. For example, not being invited to a party that your fellow students or co-workers were, someone making you feel uncomfortable focusing on a behavior they may not understand is part of your being autistic, or even something as minor as a negative emoji on your Instagram post.

Cyber bullying is when it happens online, such as someone making fun of you on social media.

You are not alone. Get professional help from a counselor, therapist or clergy who you feel comfortable with.

Just as we don’t want to be bullied we need to watch that we not be the one bullying others.

Additional Resources on Bullying

An Autism Perspective on Bullying: Creating a Culture of Acceptance

Other Additional Resources

Building Relationships page of the website